Issue Six

James Purdon

In the Audience

In Daumier’s Le Mélodrame, a heaving crowd watches the climax of the play. On stage, a woman swoons. The love triangle is resolved, a man lies dead. Meanwhile, outside, Hausmann’s plan is taking … Read article

Sarah Churchwell

Dr Eckleburg’s Myopia

When I was growing up in Chicago, my mother kept a large print on the kitchen wall, showing a New Yorker’s View of the World from 9th Avenue, a map with skyscrapers and a large Hudson River in the … Read article

Susanna Hislop

To My Unborn Child

I went to a party once – a long time ago, once upon a time – and it was fine, but fairly boring. (Parties had started to get more boring at around that time). There were lots of my friends there… Read article

Ruth Fowler

Tango

The music of tango is the hoarse curse of the woman to her lover. It’s the insolent hand that creeps to the cusp of a man’s hipbone, retreats, silent and knowing. Tango is the woman's dance. Even … Read article

Dan Stevens

Looking After #numbertwo

Nothing happens unless first a dream. (Carl Sandburg) In the bar of a Holiday Inn in Ipswich I find myself in conversation with the writer of a popular television drama, when the subject of Twitter c… Read article

Thomas Marks

On Lodging

Lodger. It sounds a sad thing. Still, whenever talk turns to houses and someone asks if I own, it seems best to own up. I am a lodger. Not a tenant or lease-holder or anything else, but a lodger, rent… Read article

Freddie Stevenson

Golf

I was drinking gin / at an airport bar in California, I think, / awaiting a flight / to Denver. / They were showing the golf / at St. Andrew’s. / It was / evening in Fife, / and the sun was lobbing … Read article

David Hermann

Croak

Seeing the love of your life for the first time since she left you is one thing. Seeing her perform naked at a live art event, defecating into a condom and then masturbating with it is another thing, … Read article

Marianne Morris

De Kooning, a Retrospective

seated man, clown, a stitch in your neck / saves time / teeth platter, palette seat, italics / creamy breast / light-hearted evil eye— / ‘a major at forty’ / ART BEGINS AT FORTY. / Only ego to t… Read article

Peter Scott

Table for one

In a tiny Tuscan hilltop town not far from Chiusi, there is a modest trattoria which I will call Lilla, perching on the downslope of one of the steep streets that draw the eye towards Siena. Some year… Read article

Editor’s Note

‘Thinking in terms of one / Is easily done – ’ wrote Philip Larkin in ‘Counting’. There is a simplicity and clarity to the individual in isolation that becomes complicated as soon as other beings are involved. The solitary mind has its own distractions and considerations, of course, but any interaction is bound to increase these.

In Issue 6 of The Junket we have Thomas Marks ‘On Lodging’, exploring the curious position a lodger holds, both in a household and in society: the disquieting, footloose individual in the spare room. Peter Scott dines alone and broods on the joys and sorrows of asking for a ‘Table For One’. Freddie Stevenson’s poem ‘Golf’, finds him alone in an airport bar, deeply feeling his displacement and yearning for physical companionship.

But counting up to two
Is harder to do;
For one must be denied
Before it’s tried.

Ruth Fowler unveils the emotional complexities of the ‘Tango’ and how it takes more than one to dance it. ‘To My Unborn Child’ is Susanna Hislop’s confession to a hypothetical individual that may one day be brought into the world, simultaneously multiplying and dividing her own existence. James Purdon examines a slice of artists’ representations of what happens ‘In The Audience’ when we gather together in numbers for entertainment.

David Hermann’s story ‘Croak’ finds his protagonist, Johnny Penguin, chronically bored with the so-called ‘entertainment’ he is presented with and, by turns, the void at the centre of a society overly concerned with the marginal. Marianne Morris’ poem, ‘De Kooning, A Retrospective (New York, 10 January 2012)’, abstracts the life of the artist and – both visually and verbally – looks at his use of colour over the decades. The way we see, or don’t see and, in particular, the way America has traditionally seen the world is the subject of ‘Dr Eckleburg’s Myopia’, Sarah Churchwell’s sharp glance at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and how short-sightedness can reinforce a warped view of ourselves.

Try one piece; then try two; then offer to a friend. The Junket is delicious enjoyed alone; better shared.

Dan Stevens

List of Contributors

Sarah Churchwell

Sarah Churchwell is an American-born academic, writer and critic. She is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby. @sarahchurchwell

Issue Six

Contents

Editor’s Note

List of Contributors